Concert Review: NASHVILLE MEETS LONDON (Day 1), Canary Wharf, London

Photo credit: In Your Area

*Scroll down for a photo gallery of the event!*

Everything is better when it’s free, and I’d say that this sentiment extends nicely to music festivals too. You mean to tell me that instead of paying what can be extortionate amounts of money to see a whole bunch of artists, I can do it for free? Count me in. Just one of the reasons why I’m a big advocate of Nashville Meets London, which this year saw its third annual edition in Canary Wharf’s Canada Square Park.

And what a day to kick off the festival. The weather was scorching, and the crowds were out in their hordes even as the festival began at 2pm. Jade Helliwell was the artist chosen to kick off the festival, entering the stage dressed in a shimmery mermaid jumpsuit. She kicked off the party with some upbeat tunes including Boom Tick and By My Side, and it was clear from the way she worked the stage that this is a woman who is truly at home when performing.

It was on the ballads where she truly shone with her strong vocals and classic ever-so-slight American lilt that UK country singers tend to develop. Indeed, whilst being the first artist to hit the stage, I knew her rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah would be a highlight of the whole weekend for me.

There were half hour breaks between each set, which whilst relatively long, wasn’t really a problem as it gave attendees the chance to mill around and find something to eat or drink in the many surrounding shops and bars, as well as giving yours truly a chance to get some interviews in (watch this space!) Festival goers were spread out on the grass in front of the large stage, with a screen to the side for those of us sitting further back. My only qualm about the setup was that the speakers themselves were relatively small, and with the windy weather, vocals all too easily got carried away on the breeze.

Next to join the party were The Adelaides, comprised of Paris Georgia, Alicia Alba and Abi Phillips, who I was astounded to find out had only been together for a year given their well polished performance. They left no doubt that they were country between their songs including Jack Daniels (“is my only friend”) and fantastic style that I wish we could wear on a day to day basis here.

They proved without a doubt that three voices can be better than one with beautiful harmonies as highlighted on a lovely cover of Jolene (I take my hat off to anyone who dares compete with Dolly!) and their catchy end song, potentially called Pull The Trigger. With sounds not carrying across the park, lyrics and song names weren’t the easiest to pick up on!

I was excited to see the next band perform, given that the last time I had seen them must have been around 2014 when I stumbled across them busking on Grafton Street in Dublin. However, good music is worth remembering, and reading the name Keywest on this years lineup, I was brought back to stopping to enjoy their performance then, and sure I would again at the festival .

Keywest were perhaps more rock/pop than country which I had no problem with given that this festival was a great opportunity to show Brits the range that country encompasses, be that more traditional styles to the crossover with pop that we know and love today. They were high energy and loud as they rocked together on tracks like Something Beautiful and a cover of The Cranberries Linger, coming together at one point to all bang the drums in unison. Definitely a change from some of the other acts.

The next act was a great pick in my opinion, and one of the only ones that I had actually seen perform live before, given Frankie Davies was the opening act for Maddie and Tae last year (you can read a review of that gig here) and has opened for plenty other big name US acts too. There’s a reason for this, and that’s because she’s great.

I remembered admiring her pure voice and we were treated to this again, as well as her talent on guitar, as she performed songs like The Sweetest Sound and Wherever I Go. I also really appreciated her interaction with the crowd, greeting them gratefully within minutes of coming onstage and explaining stories behind the song she wrote for her dad (Superman), and the song she wrote for her mum who was jealous her dad got a song first (Dancing All Night). The covers performed by acts throughout the festival were of a very high standard, and Frankie’s cover of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain was no exception. Certainly one to watch.

If you’d have heard of anyone at the festival, bets would be on that being Sam Palladio, known for his role as Gunnar on the hit TV show Nashville. Now that the show has ended, Sam has started to make steps out on his own, beginning with festivals like this. He kicked off with the very vibey Hello Heartbreak Blues which was reminiscent of an early John Mayer.

There was plenty of Nashville to go around, including Can’t Get It Right, Gun For A Mouth, I Will Never Let You Know, I Will Fall and of course the classic Fade Into You, just in case you forgot where he came from. Splattered in between these was the occasional self-penned track like Faster Than A Bullet, songs which felt reasonably different to those he’d been singing for the show. I’d be interested to know whether Sam will be able to step out from behind Gunnar’s shadow and make a name for himself. Here’s hoping.

The final act of the night was young gun Dylan Schneider, playing his first show in the UK. He certainly had a lot of energy and warned the crowd that he would be talking a lot during his set, a promise which he kept, occasionally shouting at the crowd in glee things like “this is amazing, you’re blowing it off the road, baby!”

He was the epitome of bro-country, citing his biggest influence as Florida Georgia Line and putting his take on Cruise. Whilst not everyone’s cup of tea, his high energy ‘Friday night party’ tracks like You Heard Wrong and How Does It Sound were a sound way to take the festival up a year and leave attendees on a high. Day 1 done!

I hope you enjoyed today's review of Nashville Meets London! Come back soon for my Day 2 review and roundup, and make sure to stay tuned to the blog and follow me on Twitter @CiarasCountry for plenty more music reviews, as well as interviews with many of the artists in this article. Thanks for reading!

Gallery

Review: THE MUPPETS TAKE THE O2, The O2, London

Something a little different than my usual concert reviews, but this certainly counts as some sort of music event, so I thought I’d review it nonetheless! Like a few other events I’ve attended recently, this was another that fell into my hands last minute, but I’d be lying if I hadn’t been umming and ahhing about going for months. The Muppets are without a doubt one of the most iconic of pop culture icons and if you can’t say you’re an avid fan of Kermit et al, I’m afraid we can’t be friends.

I’d opted for the matinee performance, so arrived at an O2 full of a younger crowd than that of the shows I was used to going to. The kids were getting a bit edgy as the show had a delayed start, but soon quietened as the lights went down and the first of the Muppets came on stage.

Immediately, I was enthralled by how it was done. There was no hiding that the Muppets were in fact puppets (rumour has it crossed with mops – that’s how they got their names) as the puppeteers, sometimes two per Muppet, rolled across the stage on small sliding platforms, dressed in black so they’d be less noticeable, but very obviously there. I thought this was great. Unlike on TV or in the movies, we actually got to see the fantastic actors who made the magic come alive. Interestingly, the screens were very obvious in their cutting out of these actors, so from further away than I was, you only would have been able to see the torsos of the puppets, much like on TV.

The performance was an interesting mix of characters chatting on stage about putting on ‘Muppets Take The O2’, super short skits, and some recognisable songs. Even for those of us who hadn’t seen the Muppets in decades, the characters are so cross-generational that it made perfect sense for a 50 year old to be enjoying it just as much as a 5 year old.

The show started the way it should – with the opening theme sung by all the Muppets in their little cubby holes. Hearing them burst out with “It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights” brought a nostalgic tear to my eye. In the first few skits, we were re-introduced to beloved characters like Miss Piggy, appalled the entire show was not solely about her; Kermit and Fozzie taking a road trip together; and Rowlf the Dog singing his way through the Tube map. This certainly was a ‘Made for the UK’ show.

It was where we had a bit more meat (no pun intended) that the show became more enjoyable. Take Pigs In Space, where Miss Piggy and pals, plus special guest Peter Davison aka the Fifth Doctor, played with a regeneration machine turning one of the pigs into various iterations of Doctor Who. The guests were well used but I felt the Saturday showings had slimmer pickings – more on that later.

Kermit came back on stage for a quick dance to Happy Feet, and then we had the slightly bizarre occurrence of actor Anthony Head reading Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud for a few moments – what? Turns out this was all to be interrupted by Pepe the King Prawn, who is undoubtedly one of the Muppets most enjoyable characters.

I very much enjoyed the Croakapella segment, mainly because Kermit’s nephew Robin is an incredibly cute puppet, as I was with Muppstream which played Netflix style trailers on the screens above the stage, including The Walking Bread with the Swedish Chef, and Frogglebox. We finished Act I with a few songs from Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem including Can You Picture That? (which I have since discovered is a Muppets original) and The Lumineers Ho Hey.

Act II got off to a good start with a cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody feat various chickens and Animal frantically searching for his Mama. This was followed by the fun but quite out of place Boo Danube – yes, boo, as in ghosts. In fact, there wasn’t really much coherence to the show itself, with skit after skit and very little of a storyline going between them. I reckon it would have been a more enjoyable show had that been the case.

You can’t really go wrong with Muppet Labs, and Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker introduced us to the Cloud, and what a scary place it really can be. The screens then showed Fozzie Bear running around backstage in an attempt to make it on time to break the Guinness World Record for most jokes told in two minutes (spoiler alert: he didn’t) made all the better by four kazoo-ing penguins helping to build the suspense; followed by an aptly timed football joke given England’s sad loss in the World Cup Semi-Finals a few days earlier.

Another highlight was the next scene with the Swedish Chef and guest star comedian Adam Hills who gave us a tutorial on how to make haggis with various IKEA-sounding ingredients and physically shoving oats down a sheeps mouth given it all has to end up in the stomach. Quite amusing, with Adam himself almost cracking up a few times.

Gonzo made a brief appearance on stage to do some magic, but it was the next section that I think most of us had been waiting for – Mahna Mahna. The characters scanned the crowd to see if the song could be made better with any pop stars waiting in the audience, and lo and behold, Steps were on hand to do just that. Frankly talent I think that was a bit wasted considering all they had to do was scream ‘MAHNA MAHNA’ into a microphone. Nevertheless, last nights guest to fill this spot was Kylie Minogue, which I think would have dramatically increased the star power.

Finally, the show came to an end with Miss Piggy’s rendition of Adele’s Hello, which involved her being flung from side to side by enthusiastic backup dancers; and the whole crew coming back together to help a certain frog with a banjo sing Rainbow Connection. What a cute way to end. Was The Muppets Take The O2 a perfect show? Absolutely not – the scenes were somewhat disjointed and set changes not seamless leading to awkward moments behind skits. It certainly could have been a lot smoother. Would I go again? Probably not – I think you’d get a better experience from watching them off YouTube, and at least the disjointed nature would make more sense as you move from video to video. Nonetheless, one has to try these things to see if they’re good, and I can for sure tell you I would have had a bad case of FOMO had I not gone!

I hope you enjoyed today's review! Make sure to follow me on Twitter @CiarasCountry for plenty more music reviews as well as the occasional random event like this, and drop me a comment below with your favourite Muppet - mine's Robin! 

Top Albums of 2018 (So Far!): Part 2

Time flies when you’re listening to good music, and here we are again for the second instalment of my Top Albums of 2018! As someone who listens to music a lot (as you may have gathered from this blog) I find I often fall into a sense of ennui when sticking my iPhone onto shuffle, so a new batch of music is always more than welcome to spice things up, and the last three months have certainly helped – read on for my picks the best albums so far!

Charlie Puth – Voicenotes

Why it made the list: I like artists about whom you can say ‘yeah, that sounds unique,’ and that’s certainly the case with Charlie Puth. I don’t know of another male artist in my living memory who has quite used their range in the same way he has. Upon first listen to Voicenotes, I had the urge to dance to almost every song. It’s certain that this is feel good music, even when it deals with sticky issues like one night stands in How Long, or dating what sounds like a considerably older woman in BOY. Admittedly there are a few songs on here that after a few listens, I’m more than happy to skip (Change and Through It All being the notable examples), but the remainder provide hit after hit that I’ll be dancing to all the way home. The only downside? Charlie’s not yet announced UK dates for his Voicenotes tour!

Top Tracks: BOY, Empty Cups, Done For Me 

Keith Urban – Graffiti U

Why it made the list: When you think country music (if indeed, you do), you probably think of those who have maintained a legacy within the genre for decades – Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw – and no doubt Keith Urban fits this bill too. Now on his umpteenth album, Graffiti U is certainly a change from the country heavy albums of his past as we veer more and more into pop territory, only differentiated by Keith’s distinctive country twang. Urban is a man made for arena shows, and this shows on the album full of party-starters (Never Comin Down), singalongs (Coming Home), and anthem ballads (Parallel Line, Female).  This album leaves something to be desired from his previous releases for me, but no doubt this crossover record has opened him up to yet more potential fans discovering what modern country is all about

Top Tracks: Drop Top, Parallel Line, Same Heart  

Sugarland – Bigger

Why it made the list: Haven’t we been waiting long enough for a new Sugarland music? Well, our wish has been granted with Bigger, and as suggested in their debut single from this album, Sugarland are here to prove they’re Still The Same. Throughout the album, and as is often the case with Sugarland work, the duo tackle deep issues with their music, this time including the #MeToo movement with notes of female empowerment woven across a number of the songs, and school shooting and suicide on Tuesday’s Rain. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Sugarland album without a bunch of fun songs too (Stuck Like Glue remaining as one of my favourites of theirs) and tracks like Lean It On Back help them keep this identity. Interestingly, the duo who normally pen their own songs, called on the help of superstar Taylor Swift and Train frontman Pat Monahan for their song about moving on from a cheater, Babe (sorry to any fans who thought it was in fact about a talking pig). Some may argue that the use of a ‘Bigger’ (pun intended) name may have just been a push for more commercial success, but it’s a good song nonetheless, and pleasant return from the duo.  

Top Tracks: Let Me Remind You, Babe, Love Me Like I’m Leaving

Dierks Bentley – The Mountain

Why it made the list: With the news that Dierks Bentley is hosting the inaugural Seven Peaks music festival held in the mountains later this summer, it should really come as no surprise that his new album is entitled The Mountain. With his gritty voice, he does sound a bit like a mountain man too, which only makes it even better! And what an album – every song has the ability to evoke all kinds of different emotions. Goodbye in Telluride makes me want to take a road trip, Woman, Amen wants me to sing at the top of my lungs, My Religion brings tears to my eyes, and the rockabilly Travelin’ Light makes me want to start two-steppin’ (not that I know how to do that). This is an album that is a love song to Arizona, Colorado and being on the road, so for a wanderlustful traveller like me, I couldn’t have asked for a better record.

Top Tracks: Woman Amen, Burning Man, Goodbye in Telluride

I hope you enjoyed my round-up of the top albums of 2018 so far! Do you agree with my list, or are their other albums you think should have been included? Let me know either in the comments below or on Twitter @CiarasCountry as I’m always keen to check out new music! Stay tuned for further additions to this series, and make sure you have a look at my suggestions from previous years, uploaded every three months to this blog. More content coming soon!

TRAVEL: Oslo, Norway - fjords, figures and fancy food

On my quest for the cheapest Bank Holiday trip imaginable, I found myself back on a flight comparison site looking for ‘London to anywhere’ flights. The top hit? Oslo. Sure, why not? I’d visited the country many, many years ago on a Scandinavian camping trip, but was more than happy to go somewhere I couldn’t remember. Flight booked, Airbnb booked, I started doing my research on the city. Every website started with something along the lines of ‘A lovely city, but expensive’ or ‘A beautiful place to visit, if you can afford to do so.’ Ah.

The websites were right on both accounts, but even the cost wouldn’t have put me off what really was a lovely trip. At noon on a bright Saturday, I headed to Stansted airport, arriving around two hours later in Oslo. To get to the city, we had to take the train which cost a fairly hefty £10, particularly in comparison to the £2 bus tickets I’d paid in Riga a few months ago (you can read about that trip here!) Nonetheless, it was a comfortable and quick train ride and we chose to go slightly further than the Central Station, to the National Theatre stop.

Stepping out of the station, we were greeted with blissful sunshine and a gorgeous square complete with two fountains. Ten seconds into our trip, and I already loved the city. We were stood next to a street, Karl Johans Gate, which looked fairly reminiscent of the Champs Elysee in Paris, and was so lovely I didn’t want to head straight to our Airbnb, but instead have my first wander around the city, even though I was sure we’d be returning to this part plenty of times before the trip was out. We took a quick stroll up to the Parliament building and what I had chosen as our end point, a huge clock with the ‘Freia’ on it, which we soon discovered to be a popular chocolate brand; and that the clock had been heralded in days past by FDR as the most impressive thing in Oslo.

Turning around, we headed straight to the Royal Palace, which sits in the midst of a lovely park with a few interesting sculptures in it, including a colourful rainbow, and a statue with a sock puppet. Pretty cool! We wandered our way up into Majorstuveien where our Airbnb was located, a small room in someone’s apartment. Given the other cheap Airbnb option I’d looked at, where we would have had to have stayed in the same room as our host, I thought this seemed pretty decent, given that we didn’t plan to be spending much time there anyway.

Dropping our bags off and changing into much needed summer gear with the weather being in the high 20s, it was time to head out and do some more exploring. Oslo has the benefit of being situated on a fjord, meaning it’s very easy to find your way down to the docks, and so we headed for the cool area of Akker Brygge, a waterfront strip full of seafood restaurants and overpriced (but no doubt delicious) ice cream. A wonderful place to stroll for a minute.

Knowing that food was likely to be expensive, but undeniably good, I had consulted my trusty TripAdvisor to pick out some restaurants in the ££-£££ range, and settled upon the best Scandinavian restaurant in this price range, called Smia Galleri. It was pretty far out of the city, but we were up for it, and trekked off into the suburbs. As we became more and more surrounded by residential areas, I started to get worried we were in the wrong place, until we stumbled upon the orange painted building, reminiscent of those I recalled in Mediterranean countries.

The restaurant was gorgeous, and right next to a metal workshop which I assume gave the restaurant its name. Whilst almost 9pm, it was still beautifully warm so we opted to sit outside, with a lovely server translating the entire menu for us as they had no English equivalent. I liked the fact the restaurant had both a set menu of the day, but you could also choose just one dish from the set menu a la carte if you wished, which is what we did. My travel companion chose the ‘meat of the day’, tender duck with a creamy mash and vegetables; whilst I went for the only vegetarian option on the menu, a Japanese pancake topped with kimchi. And boy, was it delicious. I 100% would recommend this restaurant.

 Whilst we sat, I commented that everyone around us seemed to be ‘living their best life’. A lady a few tables over sat curled on a chair with a book, basking in the evening sunshine; and up on the hill we could see from our location, a few groups enjoyed picnics or walked slowly around the park. The right way to spend a Saturday evening, I think. The benefit of being so far up North was that the sun was only just setting as we made our way back at 11:30pm, and I was certainly glad we’d made our trip during the summer rather than the cold and dark winter!

The next morning, we made our way down to the Central Station for my favourite activity of any trip – a free walking tour of the city. We were told to meet next to ‘Oslo’s tiger’ but the group of people already there indicated we were in the right place. Unfortunately, the English-speaking guide had been delayed by the trains, so we had about 20 minutes to wander around. Luckily, the tourist office was right next door, and so I headed in to grab a map, and read on the digital screens about a Sunday market in somewhere called Bla, which I inquired about.

We headed back to be greeted by our guide, Anne Marie, an eccentric personality who makes balloon animals in her spare time. She was quite the character, and made everything she said totally exciting. We were hooked. Our tour lasted almost two hours, and took us to a variety of places across the city: the Communist hammer smashing a swastika outside the Central Station; the utterly stunning Opera & Ballet House with its sloped walls enabling visitors to walk up the sides; Akershus Fortress; Oslo’s three city halls, the most recent of which has glorious wooden carvings depicting Norse folklore around it; and back to Parliament where we finished up. Definitely the best thing to do on our first morning in Oslo.

Our itinerary evolved around the discovery of a Sunday market, and so we took a walk up along the river, which runs from the Central Bus Station (how convenient) in search of the market. A lovely walk, with a surprisingly end – the market turned out to be tiny, with only about 10 stalls in a narrow street. Nonetheless, I ended up buying some vintage collector cards, so worth the trip! Add to this the fact that the market was just a minute away from Mathallen Food Hall, which held a bunch of delightful food stalls with cheese, pastries, meats, and ice cream with a queue stretching round the corner.

With this, it was back into the centre and to the Nobel Peace Centre, one of my top hits for the trip. We were super lucky, arriving just at 3pm when a guided tour was starting – I couldn’t have asked for better timing, as we were taken around the Peace Prize part of the museum, which this year was dedicated to I CAN, fighting for the disuse of atomic weapons. This photo exhibition was also accompanied by an interactive room where standing in front of panels would tell you about all of the previous winners.

Downstairs was just as interesting, with a photo exhibit on ‘Generation Wealth’, examining the cult of celebrity, sex work, ageing beautifully, and those who had wished for wealth and grandeur but been negatively impacted by the economic depression. A fantastic and informative way to pass the time.

Alas, our day was far from over, and we headed all the way back up the city and past our Airbnb to Vigeland Sculpture Park, another ‘must’ for me. This park houses 212 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland, and we had great fun seeing as many as we could (thank goodness most are located within three main sections) and making up titles for what we thought they could be called. The strange nature of the sculptures just made this more fun, with babies balancing on their heads, people flipping each other over their backs, and the most famous angry baby.

Then it was back all the way through the city and near to the Opera House for the second best ££-£££ restaurant, Mirabel. This sits on a peninsula accessible by a small pedestrian bridge behind the Opera House, which inconveniently happened to be closed during our attempted visit. How inconvenient… Given the lateness of the day and the tiredness of our feet, it was decided we’d just go someone nearby, opting for Mamma Pizza which I’d seen on TripAdvisor too, a decent pizza joint where the dishes were importantly served quickly!

All too soon, we’d reached the last day of our trip, and so we packed up the room, said goodbye to our hosts and headed down to the waterfront where we’d booked a fjord tour. We boarded the Helena, an ancient looking vessel, and spent the next two hours floating along the fjord past the ‘She Lies’ iceberg sculpture next to the Opera House, cute summer homes on the islands, and occasionally being told interesting facts about what we were seeing. I approve.

Docked up at 12:30, we headed back to the Opera House where we’d booked a tour, again thanks to the helpful digital screens in the tourist office which notified us that such a thing existed. It was so worth it. We spent an hour being told about how the Opera House had been designed to be open to the public, which explained its sloped sides; the decision to leave the inner atrium bare of art because ‘the art was behind the auditorium doors’; the wood and chairs in the main theatre chosen to amplify music but less so vocals (but still being treated to a glorious song by one of the members of our group whilst in the theatre so we could hear the stunning acoustics); and even getting to go backstage to the huge workshops where set pieces sit and are being created. This was an absolute highlight of the trip for me.

Of course, we had to check out what all the hype was about with regards to walking up the Opera House, an idea I think is so fantastic. What better place to chill than the top of this gorgeous building, and for free, whenever you like, nonetheless? We cracked open a pack of aptly named Ballerina biscuits and revelled in the moment. What a joy it was to be there right then.

Always wanting to do as much as I can on any trip, I next suggested we head for Ekeberg Sculpture Park, on a hill a bit beyond the Opera House, in spite of my feet clearly stating that this was not what they wanted to do. Unfortunately, with all the redevelopment going on at the Harbourside, it was difficult to figure out where to go and a few wrong turns meant it took us longer than we’d hoped. Nevertheless, we made it there eventually, and it was at this point that I remembered it was a hill. My feet were not happy.

Eventually, I dragged myself up, and enjoyed the albeit strange sculptures held in this off-the-beaten-path park. However, it was truly worth it when we found a sculpture by none other than Salvador Dali of Venus de Milo filled with drawers; and the fact that this was supposedly the park in which Edward Munch was walking when he was inspired to paint The Scream. I certainly was inspired to go and rest my feet.

Our journey ended back at the Central Station with an overpriced but yummy grilled cheese sandwich, something I was glad to have stocked up on when we discovered our flight was delayed until midnight that night. What a weekend, what a trip, what a city. If you’re thinking of a sunny city break over the holidays, consider Oslo!

My tips for visiting Oslo: It goes without saying, but be mindful that it is an expensive city. Luckily, they have a currency which isn’t as easy to understand as pounds or euro, so I like to think I was ignorant of what I was spending. Nevertheless, it’s worth shelling out a bit more for fantastic meals like we had, so I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Find out what’s happening whilst your there with a quick trip to the Tourist Office or a chat to the locals – we never would have found out about the cute market or Opera House tour if we hadn’t done so. Finally, tours are great. I’m a true convert having got an inside look of the Opera House, and know that if the opportunity arises to do something similar on future trips, I’ll be sure to take it.

I hope you enjoyed today’s blog as much as I enjoyed visiting Oslo! I’m in the midst of planning my next trip, so be sure to stay tuned either on the blog or on Twitter @CiarasCountry for more travel blogs like this coming soon. If you have any recommendations for cities I should visit, please drop me a comment below as I’m always looking for new and exciting destinations!